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Werner Luscher
Werner Luscher (born November 28, 3598) is a Hulstrian and Gao-Soton politician who has served as Vice Staatsminister and Interior Minister since 3644. From 3644 he led the Nationales Bürgerforum (NBF) as its Chairman, until he merged his party with the Liberale Volkspartei (LVP) in 3651; he subsequently became Deputy Chairman of the new party, the Liberale Bürgerunion (LBU). In 3657, he took over the party leadership from Franz Graumann and became Staatsminister one year later. Early life Luscher was born in 3598 in a small town near the city of Marchau, Kuratha. He moved to Marchau itself at the age of four when his grandfather died and his father inherited a convenience store near the city centre. Luscher claims that he spent much of his childhood helping his father operate the store. In 3515, when he was seventeen, his father was involved in an automobile accident and suffered disability as a result, forcing Luscher to drop out of school to operate the store full-time. Local and Kuratha politics Luscher developed an interest in politics in his early twenties as he felt that small businesses were unable to compete with larger corporations due to government policies. Although he did not have any of the tertiary qualifications common among politicians - for example, a degree in law or economics - he decided to join the Nationales Bürgerforum (NBF) in 3624 and ran for election to the Marchau Stadtrat two years later. He was successful, although only by a fairly close margin. Luscher came to the public and party's attention through his aggressive performances on the floor of the Stadtrat, lambasting the city's left-wing Solidarität administration for its mismanagement and incompetence. Capitalising on his enhanced profile, Luscher decided in 3628 to seek election to higher office - the Landtag of Kuratha - and was successful. Two years after his election to the Landtag, Luscher gained favour with the party's Crownland-level Parliamentary Leader, Doris Etzbach, by helping her talk to death a bill which would give a grant of public funds to a left-wing organisation which later turned out to be a terrorist group. He also played a part in organising the 'Jail Meissner' campaign, where protestors demonstrated for the prosecution of disgraced former Kuratha Minister-President Korbinian Meissner, accusing him of being complicit in terrorism by making the aforementioned grant. When she was elected to become the NBF's Chairwoman in Kuratha in 3633, Etzbach helped her protégé, Luscher, succeed her as Parliamentary Leader, a role in which he continued his strong criticisms of the Crownland government. When Etzbach left office as Chairwoman in 3636, Luscher again succeeded her. The party's strong showing in Kuratha in the election of 3638 - it doubled its vote share - was attributed to his strong leadership and thus launched him to national prominence as a potential future leader of the NBF. Shortly after the election, he called for "generational change" in the party's leadership, stirring further speculation about his political ambitions. NBF Chairman and Minister The NBF's long-serving Chairwoman, Edith Strötzel, resigned as leader in 3640, leaving the post open to her preferred successor, Deputy Chairman Kuniko Fujita, who faced but defeated a strong challenge from Karl Hellwegge, the Education Minister and the party's Secretary-General. Luscher was then elected Deputy Chairman to replace Fujita, providing a charismatic right-wing counterweight to Fujita's more moderate and uncharismatic manner. As he remained a member of the Kuratha Landtag, he was not apppointed to the national Cabinet. As a result of the NBF's dramatic gains in the early election of November 3643 coupled with somewhat smaller gains for the LVP, the NBF was in position to go into coalition government with the LVP without needing a third party (such as the Hosianisch-Demokratisches Verbund; HDV) to provide a majority. Fujita opposed a NBF-LVP coalition, while Luscher, backed by many senior party figures and the party base, supported one. In March 3644, despite the party's improved performance under his leadership, Fujita was challenged for the leadership by Luscher, who subsequently won with sixty percent of the vote. Shortly thereafter, Staatsminister Ludwig Kirchgasser was deposed as Chairman of the LVP for similar reasons. His replacement, the populist Franz Graumann, agreed to form government with the NBF as his party's sole coalition partner. Luscher became Vice Staatsminister and Interior Minister. Between his election as party Chairman and the election of 3648, Luscher stood against the establishment faction of the LVP, which was trying to pull down the coalition and form a new government including the HDV as a moderating influence. Although he was personally unable to be too strong in his criticism, he gave licence for his subordinates to publicly attack the LVP establishment, resulting in a famous outburst by Parliamentary Leader Wolfgang Hilgers, who called establishment heavyweight Erik Fuchswalder, the former LVP Parliamentary Leader, a "discredited turncoat" and told him to "grow up" and "stop throwing a tantrum". Despite tensions between the NBF and the LVP establishment, Luscher enthusiastically campaigned for a second term for the LVP-NBF coalition government. Althoug the two parties fell short of a majority, they were able to form a stable minority government. Fouding the Liberale Bürgerunion After two fairly uneventual years for the government and the NBF, Luscher announced that, having consulted with leading members of his party, he would support an official merger of his party and the LVP, saying that the combined strength of a united party could not "be matched by any other party". Graumann later signalled his approval of the proposal, and plebiscites of the respective party bases returned substantial majorities in favour of the merger - just over seventy percent of the NBF membership voted to merge. During negotiations regarding the precise form of a merger, and the date of the merger, the two parties agreed to officially merge in November 3651, forming the Liberale Bürgerunion (Liberal Civic Union; LBU). Graumann remained at the head of the merged party, while Luscher was elected Deputy Chairman (and retained his ministerial positions). In snap elections held shortly thereafter, the new party won the largest plurality of any party in close to a century, including pluralities in every Crownland. LBU Leader and Staatsminister Luscher became LBU Chairman in January 3657, succeeding the ageing Franz Graumann. Under his leadership, the party showed off its conservative streak more often, but mostly maintained neoliberal economicy policy. After winning the general election of 3658, Luscher became Staatsminister in an LBU minority government. Soon after, he had to deal with a revitalized HDV under its new dynamic leader Oli Stolcker, who attacked the LBU administration for increasing poverty and crime rates in the big cities which he attributed to a lack of concern for social welfare issues from the government's part and "reckless" neoliberal economic policy. Category:Politics of Hulstria & Gao-Soto Category:Hulstrian and Gao-Soton people